Tuesday, December 31, 2013

If I had my way I'd leave it up all year 'round. But, then...I'd have to dust it. So... can't.

Bernie found a buddy to sit with him and stare at the sparklies.

I've been taking a few more shots of my little origami ornaments that I love so much... because, well, just because....................there is nothing but drywall dust and mess everywhere else.

Tomorrow....the tree may have to come down.... amidst helping hold up cross bars for a suspended ceiling in the tv room downstairs....sigh..yes, still renovating....this time on a previously finished room. The ceiling was drywall. Painted in some areas and stippled in others. And, a nuisance for trying to fish wires through between the floor joists of the upstairs and ceiling down here...even when we put some of the stereo wiring in tubes prior to doing that ceiling several years ago. And, we did have it figured out pretty well too. But ......

Last year, the upstairs reno caused problems ... because the guys who did the heating and ducting weren't very careful, and, in trying to make things fit "their way", squeezed the cables and wires between pipes making it impossible to move them unless we took things apart down here. Dammit anyway. So, Somebunny decided on Boxing Day that we must re-do the ceiling.

I resisted.

Two days later.....we were tearing down the ceiling.

Five hours later..we were vacuumning, and tearing off poly and cleaning up the mess.... man, we're good. And, well we should be too. Been doing our own renovations on this house for over 28 years now. Miraculously, we didn't make any mess on the carpet. Well, not miraculously really ... we were just our usual careful selves. We seem to be the only ones who don't wreck our own stuff. Gotta love tarps, drop cloths and taking care.

Today we are removing unused wires...running a few new ones for the tv in my exercise room, so I can move it to another wall. To make it easier to get at the wiring behind the cupboard door on which it has hung for the past few years. We are getting too old to be hefting it on and off the bracket holding it on the cupboards.... and it is just too awkward to get at the wiring even with it off there....so move it. Re-do the wiring. Re-make new cupboard doors ... oh, and remake another box for the projector before we can pu tup the new ceiling... so, now ..in freezing weather ..the garage needs cleaning and we have to move a huge work bench into position where the car usually is... in order to have something to work on to build boxes....

off I go to clean, move furniture and move stuff..............see ya later....

And, I don't wanna hear no laffin' and snickerin' from family and folks who know me..... you know who you are. You've known me and my ongoing situation with dear Mr. BV and his penchant for demolition and rebuilding for many years...well, ALWAYS .... ...it's a sickness...what can I say? And, I do still love him. We are the only couple we know who does renovations and manages to stay together. At least he isn't off gambling, carousing or anything like that....I always know exactly where he is......sigh....... ....

Thursday, December 26, 2013

Bernie settled in early on Christmas Eve to see the sparkly tree.... of course, it wasn't sparkly when he first got there and settled in to his favourite viewing spot. It was still daytime. I think he was a bit over eager.

Nonetheless, he did get the best seat in the house. And, soon...was rewarded for his patience.

Monday, December 23, 2013

Finally!! I've had to keep it under wraps 'til now because my stitching buddy Maggi hadn't yet received it ...and she does check out this blog every so often... I didn't want to spoil my little surprise.

Remember the 'master sheet' of fabric I made from various bits of other fabrics? Well, here is something else I decided to make from it..instead of just pincushions.... a little Christmas stocking.

I cut a design in light cardboard and moved it around over various parts of my sheet of fabrc..to decide on the best area to begin. Tried bits of trim and got a feel for how it might look when finished. Of course, it always changes midstream...but, that's fine... it's mostly just to find a great place to start.

See? It did change ...I decided on a totally different area, but that's fine.... I'm sure nothing is ever set in stone when doing handwork.

I figured out a little bell in cross stitch and used some seed beads for a clanger... made some gold stars and tried a few French Knots with single strand of thread... that was tricky...the gals on our stitching Flickr group heard about it and offered suggestions to tame unruly gold threads.... thanks ladies!
An edge of buttonhole lace on the real piece of lace on the heel, and a few green and red threads for holly and berries.. and, as they say....et voilà!
I did find a perfect ribbon instead of the cord to hang it ...but, no, I did not remember to take a final photo of the finished product. Too eager to get it on its way to Maggi's house.... ...

I love my own little rendition of some Christmas bells.... here you can see them close up before I added the lace to the heel.

And, because I was so pumped with my finished stocking...I just had to do another ...and it was easy to finish on time as I had already done plenty of hand embroidery on what I thought would be another pincushion....but, for some reason...I was having big trouble deciding what to put on the left side of this piece of stitchery...total mental block it seemed....... .until...I looked at it through my "stocking" viewfinder instead of this "pincushion" block ... ...hahahha....all of a sudden.. a stocking it became!!

The three large rose looking flowers are actually bits cut from the piece of lace fabric I won from Karen a while ago.... I added some bullion stitches around them...and of course, had a lot of my favs...tiny Forget-Me-Knot flowers....

Once I decided it was becoming a Christmas stocking I had to add some gold stars to mine as well... copying the first Christmas stocking... and found a bit more ribbon to hang it ....

Friday, December 20, 2013

... maybe I had some of you there...hahhaha.... don't ya just love deceptive titles? Sort of a regular on the news and great for selling scandal rags near the checkouts at the grocery store.

I'm making my walnut mice babies...that's what I'm really up to ... for the tree....and to give away. They are pretty cute and almost everybody wants one for their own tree... why wouldn't they?

Remember last year when I was panicking that I would be buying a Safeway BBQ'd chicken for Christmas dinner ? ...(turned out I didn't have to resort to that, but, it was close) .... because this was where my oven was still sitting on the 21st of December ..... in the dining room! Because the cabinet guys couldn't get things right. Not this year. All is done ...but, now...I don't have my new dining room table and chairs..oh, well...we still have the old one....and I ain't taking it out til I see the new one in the back of a delivery truck! which may be first week in January...or not......

Friday, December 6, 2013

..one can only toss or carry so many shovelfuls...... yesterday I did another hour and was more or less done in ... today...looks like still close to another hour to get it finished... maybe later...the sun is out even though it is bitterly cold.... usually that is okay ...it feels good on your face .... and I do have a great down coat.... keeps me plenty warm .. and, I bet my arms and shoulders are getting stronger so ..hey... what's another hour? ...

I can do this... poor Mr. BV is working 12 and 13 hour days right now...I hate it when he has to come home and go out in the dark to shovel after days like that... he did an hour too the other day and I called him to get in here for a hot drink... it's a project... can't all be done in a day ...

I'm whittling it down to size ...
But, the pile out front is growing.... I can't toss it much higher... I just have to walk further with the shovel.....

In fun stuff.... I got out my little Christmas ornaments that I love to make each year....

Origami ornaments and my little walnut and hazelnut mice.... I love them both and try to make several new ones each year..

Remember these? You can read more about them here if you are interested... I like to have lots on our tree so that folks can take a couple home if they like them...

Okay... that's enough playing for one morning... now it's time to play with some rogue dust bunnies.... and later .. maybe some baking .... it is a beautiful sunny day and most of it should be spent in here .... where the sun makes it feel lovely.... I'm not so sure on the standing around outside today..... I'll give it a long think................................................................................................................................................

Thursday, December 5, 2013

We had a real old fashioned blizzard for a couple days and now... we are all digging out. Lots of folks are in a pile of snow a lot worse than ours... some in the north end of the city have drifts up to the roof line... glad we don't live there..

This was bad enough...and it was tough to shovel... the wind blows it so hard it becomes firmly packed and can't just be shovelled...you have to bang it with the edge of the scraper first in order to break it up and then shovel it ... I worked and worked hard for an hour and a half the first day...and had to give up...I just couldn't bang it or life on more shovel full....

While I was resting...I heard a snowblower...and thanks to my neighbour.... had a walking size path done on the rest of the city sidewalk that surrounds the house...we are on a corner lot..so quite a lot of shovelling from front to back and also the front sidewalk to the house...a big porch into which the snow blew two feet deep and the driveway at the back ... which rtanged from a fot to two feet deep all across it.... I worked another hour yesterday to clear the second half of the driveway...and today....I must make a start on the patio... which has a tiny path dug up to the steps ...and the rest still needs moving....

The wild winds blew it off the roof and most of it landed inside the patio... and there is only way in and out..to shovel it out ..or ...try to toss some of it over the 5 foot surrounded wall..... sheeesh.....

at least the sun is out...but, today it is bitterly cold at -25C ...and there is a breeze...so minus 35 for windchill... every bit of skin must be covered or you risk frostbite.....

Tuesday, December 3, 2013

Well, that's what we are calling it ...cuz we mostly do make it ourselves using FME (free motion embroidery) on the machine.... albeit on some base of scrim as lucky Karen gets to use...or in the case of us gals in Canada and the U.S. ... silly old cheesecloth...which is not nearly as nice to work on and it becomes stiffer somehow than the scrim too...

My own has some off white bits added and I don't care for it as much...plus, I think I've decided not to FME it so fully..maybe that makes things a bit stiffer as well.

I am using the piece I won from Karen to cut up and add to my latest endeavours with the pincushions and those are the hole-y areas... almost sacrilege to cut it ..but I am putting it to great use...at least I think so.

I did a practice bit on the edge of the scrim and on my cheesecloth, and they did feel more similar when I used exactly the same bits of soft lace to add to it ..and did a bit less FME... it'll save on the reels of cotton too..hahhaha...the only thing I really know about FME is that is does use many yards of thread... bobbins actually ..already...

Okay, now I'm off to rummage in the storage area looking for my little walnut mice bits and pieces ....and also the origami ornaments to play with. Must make some each year to give to folks.... always a new face that doesn't have one or two for their tree...
It's a perfect day to play inside at -17C although, I must try to shovel a bit later...the drifts are huge and packed pretty stiffly...but, maybe I'll wait until the 60 kph winds die down a bit ... they are saying it is wind chill of -30C ...brrrrr.....

Saturday, November 30, 2013

...and usually when I do try to be more productive by 'doing' too early, or if I try something that calls for the little grey cells to be more active than they usually are before 10:00..or need my eyes to see something before they are ready to do that.... ..... ...well, let's just say ..sometimes it isn't worth it.

This morning I took my coffee into my sewing room and was eager to put together my latest little pincushion.. even had the machine all set up and threaded, because I was also trying some FME on open weave fabric yesterday ....easy right? ...just change feet, raise the 'dogs' and sew around the 3 sides of my pillow.

Obviously I wasn't even thinking, period; never mind thinking clearly. Stitched around the 3 sides of what is going to be my newest pin pillow alright ... ..... but, totally forgot to put on the silk backing ...and the piece of thin cotton that backs the silk..... what a nimno! I took it off the machine and looked at it and it still didn't even register ...'til I thought... now how do I turn this? ... there is nothing to turn...what have I done? .... Sheeesh...... So.... either pick it all out ..which did not happen, because it would have ruined the satin-one-side-crepe-y fabric, I just know it would've. Instead...I put on the backing material..pinned and stitched it as I was supposed to do in the first place ...just barely inside the other line of stitching... whew! It worked. Happy camper, me. Saved my lovely piece of fabric and embroidering..

So, I have a slightly smaller cushion..but, not enough that anybody would notice or care... because there is no regulation size, of course......

I particularly like this little area of webs and detached chain leaves.. peeking out from under the lace that runs across ...

Now...just to stuff, close and stitch around the outside ...and my first off white cushion is a reality...

Sunday, November 24, 2013

... I decided to add a bit of colour... the little pieces of white that I added with FME didn't stand out enough for me... they just seemed to disappear into the fabric when I got some stitching done around them.
It looks great up close ... but, just not enough oomph...

I love the way the bits of colour look with pieces of lace and organza built up on top of them, but, I think next time I'll let it ruch up a bit if possible...it is a bit too flat looking for me.

I did add a few French Knots of yellow to pick up on the colour of the printed fabric.
Almost ready now to stitch up and turn and see how my first little off-white cushion looks....still looking for some off white fabric for the back side.. my silk is a bit too white...... might have to go shopping....

Friday, November 22, 2013

...while stitching on the paper....
Why not FME some lace and silk onto my new 'master sheet' for my next pin pillow....

so, I did.. then added a few French Knots and some tiny Forget-Me-Knot flowers, which have become a trademark of sorts.... and, here is what it looks like in my little pin pillow view finder... yes...I like it... lots more to add yet ...but, so far I really like it.